Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic by Alice Kaplan

Abstract

Reviewed by: Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic by Alice Kaplan Adele King Kaplan, Alice. Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Pp 296. ISBN: 978-0-226-24167-8. $26.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-226-56536-1. $18.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-226-24170-8. $18.00 (eBook). This book is undoubtedly the most complete story of how L'étranger was written, perhaps one of the best stories of how any novel was written. Alice Kaplan has studied seemingly every moment of Albert Camus's life during the period between 1924 to 1942. Initially, Camus was living in a small working-class apartment in Algiers with his deaf mother, and by 1930, he was suffering from tuberculosis. His teacher, Louis Germain, was shocked at the way the family lived, but persuaded his grandmother to allow him to enroll in a lycée, a rare chance for a boy from his background. He lived for a time with his uncle where he had the opportunity to read books. By 1935, Camus had obtained the equivalent of a master's degree and, had he not been suffering from tuberculosis, might have entered the French academic system. He had various amorous attachments and in 1934, he married Simone Hié and was supported by her mother. Unhappy in their bourgeois life, he was unable to describe in depth his relationship to his own mother. He suggested that his mother was in Oran with relatives, making up a false history, because of "secret resentment. Pride especially" (18). He only gradually realizes that what he wants is to find "more power in showing than in telling, more emotion in silence than in speech" (19). In 1938, Pascal Pia hired him to work as a journalist with Alger-Républicain. Then he moved to Oran to live with the family of Francine Faure, the woman to whom he became engaged. These were the years when he was gradually working on L'étranger which he would be able to complete when he arrived in Paris at the time of the German occupation. In October 1939, although the French authorities were unhappy with this appointment because of his political opinions, Camus was made editor-in-chief of a newssheet, Soir-Républicain, using the small amount of paper available. The same month, he burned his papers, removing his earlier writing from his mind. He was by then working on what would be his two other Absurdist books, Le mythe de Sisyphe and Caligula. Camus travelled to France, arriving in Paris on March 16, 1940; Pascal Pia helped him find a job as a typesetter, not a journalist. He spent all possible time writing. After Paris-Soir began publishing in Lyon, Camus moved there, leaving drafts of his manuscript in a Parisian hotel that did not keep them. When his divorce from Hié was finalized, Francine arrived in France for their marriage, on December 3, 1940. Camus was dismissed from the newspaper at the end of 1940, and the couple returned to Oran where his life was difficult. Francine had to take [End Page 174] care of him when he faced a relapse of tuberculosis. There were anti-Jewish measures; all native Algerians were no longer French citizens. Camus could only do odd jobs, but he finished Le mythe de Sisyphe, as he noted on February 21, 1941. Kaplan quotes letters from many people whom Camus knew. Especially important is the correspondence with Jean Grenier, Camus's professor from Algiers, whom Kaplan thinks is "fussy" (26) and whom she judges unable to help the young man in his initial worries about his ability as a writer. Pascal Pia, the journalist, however, was always encouraging. He had earlier introduced Camus to André Malraux, whose enthusiastic letters were another influence on Camus's state of mind. When he had been working for Alger-Républicain, Camus had used details of the trials he observed (which were often of considerable interest) as background for what he now realized would be a novel. Kaplan describes herself as looking over Camus's shoulder...